Fine Gael Fail

It's funny, but politicians rarely realise that it's hardly ever the scandal that kills you in politics; it's the coverup. Clinton was not really in trouble for sleeping with whatsername, he was in trouble for lying about it. Berlusconi is in trouble for allegedly paying a 17 year old for sex, but he's in far more trouble for allegedly covering it up. And so it is with Fine Gael.

Fine Gael said that they're not in favour of same sex marriage. Now, that in itself shouldn't be terribly surprising, although some people do seem to labour under the rather mystifying misconception that Fine Gael is progressive, now. Even gay members of FG are often not in favour of gay marriage. But when people went to complain about this on the party's Facebook page, they found that their postings were being deleted. This, of course, prompted a bit of a social media firestorm, with the result that, well, see for yourself. Their page is overrun with some people complaining about the anti-gay-marriage thing, but many more complaining about the censorship. The censors haven't been able to keep up, though from the looks of things they're still at it.

I'd be surprised if the mainstream media doesn't pick up on this tomorrow, and I don't think it'll be in a fashion complimentary to the Endaites. Censorship simply doesn't look good, even if it's only of a Facebook page.

Fine Gael's moderation policy:

Fine Gael has operated a moderation policy on this website that sought to publish as many comments as possible. Only comments that were abusive, profane or nonsensical were not posted. Positive and negative comments about Fine Gael and Irish politics were posted every day.

Ah, well, now, lads, really?

Microsoft resorts to slatternly avians to sell Bing

Angry Birds Seasons is a sort of additional Angry Birds game which is periodically updated with season-appropriate content. This month it was Valentines' day. From the games losing screen:

"Bing and Decide". This is apparently one of Microsoft's thousands of Bing-oriented ad slogans. When you select it, you get:

Ooh, cheeky! Very cheeky indeed! Also, I hadn't realised that Bing's mobile interface was quite so hideous.

Just to give you an idea of the sort of game this is, here's the ending screen:

Look at them, shamefully aroused by the just-completed porcine genocide, cloacae at the ready...

Microsoft, when your PR people told you that sex sells, I don't think that they meant sociopathic bird sex.

The real reason we aren't seeing much of Enda lately

As you know, our glorious future leader, Enda Kenny, refused to do a debate with other, lesser, party leaders on telly tonight.

The Irish Times frontpage from today:

Now, one might reasonably assume that the Irish Times is merely having a little joke with us. It turns out, though, that it's far, far more sinister than that.

This is Enda Kenny. Looks reasonably normal, doesn't he? Almost human, you might say. Admittedly, his prose tends towards that of a bad Markov generator, but these things can be forgiven.

Alas, you see, the thing pictured above is not Enda Kenny, but merely the EndaBot 8000, a device constructed by Fine Gael thaumaturges to channel the spirit of the real 'Enda Kenny', which is a dark energy being of great power and irritation. Sadly, during Cowen's downfall, Enda, unrestrained in its glee, allowed its attention to waver, causing its remarkable, humanoid-like-eque, avatar to blow a fuse. Everything we've heard since then has simply been the utterances of the loyal Fine Gael augurs whose normal role is to crudely translate the transcendent will of Enda into mad policy documents.

The Irish Times photo, then, is merely a case of over-ambition. The brave Times photographer took a photo of the dread entity at its press conference, then yanked the SD card out of the camera seconds before it melted. But, upon going live on the website, the image realised that it, a mere JPEG, could never adequately represent the glory and splendour of Enda, and auto-euthanised.

Someone from Fine Gael just posted this on Facebook; it is alleged to be Enda at an event of some sort, right now; far more important than a silly teevee show. Don't be fooled! This is clearly a cardboard cutout.